


One and the Other

by fmo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, rated t for cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for CA: TWS.</p><p>Bucky comes back, but the Winter Soldier stays too. In other words: disassociative identity disorder.</p><p>Written to (kind of, somewhat) fill this prompt:</p><p>http://stevebucky-fest.dreamwidth.org/307.html?thread=920371</p>
            </blockquote>





	One and the Other

It takes Steve and Sam four months, but they finally find Bucky in Normandy, much less far afield than they expected. It’s evening, on a town street, quieter and more orderly than Steve imagined it happening. Bucky stops walking along the sidewalk, and Steve just pulls the little rental car over and gets out. Bucky doesn’t turn around, just stops with his hands in his pockets, and Steve can see he’s tied his hair up at the back of his neck. It was summer when Steve last saw Bucky; now it’s November, all the trees bare, but Bucky’s just wearing a jean jacket, and Steve can’t help but think he must be too cold.

“Bucky,” Steve says. He means to just be unthreatening but he thinks he sounds plaintive. “It’s me. Steve.”

Bucky looks over his shoulder and says, “I know.”

“Look, I know things must be—must be confusing,” Steve says, when really he knows he doesn’t know at all. He doesn’t know exactly how much Bucky remembers or how safe he is right now, but he knows it doesn’t matter either way. “But if you know who I am then you know I’m your friend.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Bucky says. He still doesn’t turn around. “DC—that was nothing personal.”

Nothing _personal_? “It’s okay. I just want to help you,” Steve says.

“Thanks, but I’m fine.” Bucky makes to keep on walking.

“Wait,” Steve says, stepping forward and reaching out, then drawing his own hand back. “It might take some time, but you’ll remember—you’ll remember—“  He falters. “I miss you, Buck.”

“I do remember,” Bucky says, and finally he turns around and looks Steve right in the eye. And before he says anything, Steve sees the truth in his eyes, because these aren’t the Winter Soldier’s eyes any more, they’re Bucky’s eyes, and there’s a world of difference there. “You remember when we got caught out of a shelter in London in ’45 and we thought we were gonna get hit by a bomb, that we’d made it this far in the war and we were gonna die in the Blitz?” Bucky says. “There wasn’t enough time from the air raid siren, so we just hid behind a wall, even though we didn’t know where the bombs would fall.”

Steve does remember. He remembers how Bucky didn’t say anything to him, just crouched still and rigid as a statue next to him, and the siren was howling close by in the blackout, and planes were buzzing just above, and he realized that Bucky must have been more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. But Steve hadn’t known what to say then, either, so he hadn’t said anything at all.

“But the bombs fell in the next street,” Steve says. “And when we got back, Peggy and Falsworth gave us hell.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He doesn’t say that a lot of people died in the next street, where the bombs fell and the sirens didn’t go off soon enough, but that is what happened. “So, you see,” Bucky says, turning back away from Steve, “I do remember. I’d just rather be on my own. Kind of getting a liking for it.”

“You won’t come back?” Steve says at last. “You don’t have to stay with me, or—you could, but—if you come back to New York, there’d be a place for you.“

“No, thanks,” Bucky says, and this time he really does start walking away again. “Guess I spent enough time following you around, Steve. Time for a change.”

The thing is, Steve was prepared for the Winter Soldier. He was prepared to fight for his life, to persuade Bucky with all his heart and his soul that he was his friend and he would remember. He isn’t prepared for a Bucky who does remember, and says no.

Bucky walks away down the little winding street in Normandy, and Steve is only a little aware of Sam getting out of the car and putting his hands on his shoulders and saying something to him in his soft, slow voice.

Evening falls into night, and back at the little hotel Steve and Sam are staying at, Sam is in his own little room next door on the phone (with Natasha, Steve thinks) and Steve is sitting on the bed, looking again at the file Natasha gave him and the old picture of Bucky in his uniform, thinking _that wasn’t Bucky_ , but it _was_. He can’t lie to himself. It _was_ Bucky.

And then the window opens and, noiseless as a shadow, Bucky comes in. They’re only on the first floor so this is no great feat, but when Steve looks up his heart begins to pound as he thinks _Bucky_ except—this isn’t Bucky. The way this man slid into the room in two purposeful steps, the way he’s standing there now with the weight of night on his shoulders and his silver arm gleaming, this _isn’t_ Bucky and Steve doesn’t understand.

Steve stands up, half-longing and half ready to defend himself, because _this_ is the Winter Soldier, but the Winter Soldier raises a hand, slowly, palm out as though to say _stop_ or to show that he’s not armed, Steve isn’t sure. The rest of him stays motionless, fixed like a photograph. Somehow, the whites of his eyes are brilliant in the darkness.

“Bucky?” Steve whispers.

“The mission?” the Winter Soldier says.

Steve’s mouth is dry. “Are you asking me for a mission?”

“New York,” the Soldier says, as though he’s repeating what Steve said before. “What is the mission?” And where Bucky’s features were always animated, full of life and expression, the Soldier’s are dead, blank and dead.

Bucky said no, thinks Steve. But did Bucky say no because he knew this would happen? Will Bucky come back?

What will happen to the Winter Soldier if he doesn’t come with Steve?

“The mission,” Steve says. "The mission is to return to New York City and support the members of the Avengers team. To stay safe there. And to protect the world, however it needs to be protected. But,” he says, “you don’t have to choose to take the mission. It’s your choice.”

The Winter Soldier looks at him and blinks once, slowly. Then he takes a gun from the back of his waistband, puts it on the windowsill, and then sits down on the floor with his back against the wall under the window.

“You can talk,” Steve says, feeling compelled to say it although he’s not sure if he needs to.

The Winter Soldier just leans back against the wall, closes his eyes, and like that it looks like—he’s asleep.

Steve waits for a long time, watching the Winter Soldier sleep silently and listening to Sam’s voice through the wall, and then when he thinks Bucky isn’t going to leave—although it’s a risk, he can’t say he knows anything for sure any more—he goes out into the hallway again and knocks on Sam’s door.

Sam just listens as Steve explains until at last he says, “So he’s in there now?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. 

“With a gun on the windowsill,” Sam clarifies, as kindly as possible, and Steve nods. “Hell,” Sam says to the world overall. “I don’t know exactly what to tell you. This is more than anything I ever saw at the VA, but with all that brainwashing stuff—I think you did the best you could,” he says gently. “And now I think we need to call in reinforcements.”

Steve nods, and Sam sends a message to Natasha while Steve goes back into the room. He doesn’t go as quietly as he can, because he thinks the Winter Soldier might perceive that as a threat. He just goes in and sits on the edge of the bed again and watches Bucky. Or the Winter Soldier, whichever he is. In sleep, his face is somewhere between the two, and his hair is falling over his eyes, hiding the details that Steve wants to see.

Sam texts Steve: _You sure you want to sleep in there? You’re welcome to my floor. Also, Natasha says she’ll be here 15:00 tomorrow._

 _Thanks_. _I’m okay_ , Steve says. He needs far less sleep than the average man, and he spent a lot of nights awake on watch back in the war in much less comfortable conditions.

It’s four a.m. when Bucky finally jerks awake, stares up at Steve, and—and this _is_ Bucky. There’s shock in his expression as he takes in Steve sitting on the end of his bed.

“Jesus,” Bucky says at last, shifting his shoulders and sitting forward. He rubs his right hand over the back of his neck.

“You okay?” says Steve.

“Am I—what kind of a question is that,” Bucky says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Steve opens up his duffel. “Here, I got some aspirin if you want it.”

Bucky shuts his eyes and leans his head back against the wall, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t need aspirin, Steve, for fuck’s sake.”

“Looks like you do,” Steve says. He gets off the bed and slowly sits next to Bucky on the floor. “You wanna switch to the bed?”

Bucky says, “So, what, that’s it? Nothing else you wanna say?”

“Well,” Steve says. He looks at the (still made) bed, the tiny room, the door. “Still your choice if you’re coming home with us today, but either way there’s a few hours yet ‘til dawn.”

“Guess no matter what I do, _he’s_ gonna follow you.” The morning light, slowly melting into the room, is starting to paint the dark circles under Bucky’s eyes, the tiredness in all the tiny changes of his expression.

“But do _you_ want to, Bucky,” Steve says. And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? “’Cause if you don’t, I’ll—I’ll tell him to go. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Steve.” Bucky rolls his eyes and then, then there’s just a little bit of the smile Steve hasn’t seen in so long, the smile that belongs to only Bucky. “’Course I want to. You know I was, I was full of shit before.” His voice is scratchy, perhaps from disuse. “If you’ll take both parts of me, then—“  Bucky just reaches out and takes Steve’s hand that’s resting on the floor, and Steve folds his hand in turn around Bucky’s and holds tight.

“Yeah,” Steve says. And haven’t they sat like this a hundred times, in different ways and places? The two of them together, that’s what matters. That Bucky’s with him, and there, looking at him with that recognition that means he knows Steve, he’s known him when he was tiny and mad at everything and a pain to everyone, and he’s always looked at Steve just the same.

“I don’t know what you’re looking so happy for, you just signed up for a whole lot of problems,” Bucky says. “Steve, I don’t know how—or if it’ll ever get any better, you know.”

Steve knows he’s smiling, probably bigger than he has in years, but he doesn’t care. He shrugs. “I’ve always been good at getting in trouble,” he says. And he doesn’t let go of Bucky’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't fill everything that the prompt wanted, but . . . I did my best? 
> 
> Would love comments! : )


End file.
